[https://i.imgur.com/Uf7xL7d.png]

Tunie was a Ship who knew fear.

It was a constant of every Ship that Tunie had ever met to fear the terrible hidden things. No vessel knew precisely the full nature of them. It was thought and whispered and trembled in ship berths all over the reef that to even fully apprehend the danger of the terrible hidden things would be to doom an unlucky vessel to their horrible intents.

But even if none of them could know the horrors precisely, they could still sense and feel their passing. There were wefts and ripples in the actions and occurences of the reef. Coincidences and patterns that were terrible in their synchronicity. Bizarre forms of courses and events that line up just a little too effectively.

All of these made her and every Ship with even half an eye of sense shudder in apprehension. So was she ever vigilant for the terrible hidden things and whatever horrific purposes they must be enacting in the reef around her. She watched for predators, which Tunie was half sure they probably were some kind of. But deep in her drive core she suspected they were something somehow even worse then the worst terrible void predators.

But despite some initial concerns there was no strange accidents or signs of hidden ur-plots.

This was a cry for help though, a plea for aid to any and all surrounding people. Open and wide and even echoing and reflecting in the exhaust of the sluggish squirmy crawling vessels that went so slow around the reef Tunie practically classified them as stationary. Not even managing the appreciable if still stupid slow speeds of the big fat fish.

And Tunie was a good ship, and she was not going particularly fast yet anyway.

So she told her crew she wanted to course correct and help out the distressed semi-port. It would be nice and she would hardly have to even change their course at all. Barely any time at all to help and make a difference.

Her crew was a bit reluctant to risk it. But Tunie was used to that, her crew bless their tiny tiny hull and delicate constitution were even more paranoid about the machinations of horrible things happening to Tunie then was even reasonable. It was adorable how her crew made fuss over inconsequential dangers. Striving to protect her from meaningless silliness.

But Tunie loved her crew all the more for the diligence and strived to do right by them much the same. She consoled and shared her records and courses and confirmations that this was hardly a trap. Just the raiding of some local pests.

Her crew countered and whinged that Tunie could be fooled and she agreed but still wanted to help. Crew acquiesced but made her explain how precisely she was planning to help. Which she did with a neat and tidy course adjustment plotting.

Tunie was very proud of that set of courses, it was a simple and easy sweep that should resolve all of the problems that the semi-port was pleading for aide over.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Crew pointed out that the complexity of trying to fake incoming weaponry fire was way more complicated than simply requesting that the local territories actually launch projectiles with the correct mass and weight.

That was actually an interesting though she had not considered, depending on semi-ports for something like this left her somewhat disturbed. Ports and their like were for uplifting and supply grist. Not performing complex and well timed acts of trajectorial subterfuge with high precision requirements. She was dubious it could be accomplished at all honestly. But her crew seemed much more sure of themselves and this is one of the things that her crew were experienced and capable in.

It was why Tunie’s crew were the best, but there was another problem. Tunie countered the initial adjustment with several trajectories of her own pointing out how her transmission leakage too coordinate the actions of the semi-ports could be detected and discerned along most paths towards the useful angles of attack, giving away her position, trajectory and speed, ruining the ruse and any element of surprise.

She ruffled a few none-maneuvering feathers as they drifted and gently scooted along on the way to clearer void where she would eventually be able to bring the full might of her drive and the potencies of her feathers to bare.

Her crew corrected with a trajectory line of transmission that could be done well before they entered a visible arc for such leakage and how the transmissions could then be sent around the relevant targets well in advance. All it would require is that her crew do some sort of crew magic things to get all the semi-ports to cooperate on their launch timings and maintain transmission security.

That baffled and boggled Tunie a bit that it was something even to be considered feasible, sure Ports were capable of many things, but this seemed suspicious as far as Tunie was concerned. It was definitely very much a Ship thing. Tunie thought ports were nice and all and even believed she might find a pretty one to lay one of her eggs in some time, she was pretty sure this was not something they were meant to do.

Then again on reflection of the relevant directions and velocities involved and the expected sensory horizons of her targets Tunie agreed that if her crew could pull off a miracle the parameters were acceptable. It would have been risky to impossible for her to implement as a Ship alone, but it was at least theoretically an option.

But she was not a Ship alone, Tunie had the best and most wonderful of crew.

She trusted that her crew could make it work if her crew said they could.

So the matter was settled and her course adjusted.

Tunie looked forward to hearing how much this improve the morale of the semi-port crying and whining in every direction.

This would be fun!